Geeta

The alarm goes on at 5 am, Sonia wakes up and gets to the kitchen and starts preparing meals for the family for the day. She gets her children dressed and is out of her house at 6:45 am, braving past the traffic and drops her kids to school. She’s in the office by 7:45 am and goes on with the day attending internal and client meetings. Sonia started her own IT company 10 years ago, in order to ensure she spends more time with her family, as the idea was to have freedom while she raises her two kids and looks after her family.

Fast-forward 10 years, Sonia finds herself working 18 hours a day. She’s exhausted and stressed most days. On the weekends, she transforms into a home-maker and ensures everything is in place for the coming week. There are no real holidays as she works for herself and hence, she truly believes that the day she is not invested in the business, it will all come to a stand-still.

She walks out of her home with guilt everyday of not spending enough time with her family and she walks out of her office with guilt as she truly believes she can do better. Although, Sonia loves what she does both at home and at work, she’s never completely satisfied with herself, guilt and regrets have engulfed her life.

This is the truth that most working woman live everyday as they juggle their careers and nurture and raise a family.

As a mother, a wife, a daughter and today a grand mom, my advice to the younger women out there is “Look after yourself as you look after everyone else around”.

Moreover, a flexible mindspace is essential because it allows you to have greater control over your life and achieve a more substantial work-life balance. Here are my five quick tips to ensure you are making the most of your days:

1. Calendarize:

Time management is key. One of the most important time-management tools, yet extremely underutilized by most women. Be it a sports day at your daughters’ school or a pitch meeting at a client’s office, it needs to be in your calendar. The idea of scheduling ensures you are free from all the additional commitments one tends to make during the day. The good part is you are able to accomplish more and feel a sense of accomplishment once you tick off all your tasks for a day.

Tip – Color code your personal and professional tasks, the mind starts making sub-conscious notes eventually.

2. Define your Priorities:

There may be days where you need to take decisions that involve either /or on a certain task. Always make a mental note – family over work. Once you are clear on your priorities, decision-making becomes easy, and overtime tends to become guilt-free as well.

3. Be fully present in the moment:

At work or at home, if you commit to spend an hour with someone on a certain task, ensure you give them your 100% attention and time. This is not the time to be distracted with another task. A good everyday scenario is – when you drop your kids to school, the radio is on and your favorite song is playing, and your son is talking about his football match in school. Here is a decision to be made, and if your priority is family-first, then the turn off the radio and pay attention to your son, and ensure that school drop-off time is dedicated to your children always, with no exceptions!

4. Exhaustion equates frustration:

Me-time every day, this maybe a workout, a coffee with a friend, a Netflix series, reading or swimming. Once you decide what your activity of choice is, ensure you allocate one hour per day to invest that time with yourself. This ensures you’re not missing out on your own time as you fulfil all your commitments. Always remember, if you’re happy, everyone around you is happy!

5. Live life without guilt or regrets:

Go easy on yourself. Try to avoid criticizing yourself, as you are doing your best in all areas of life. It is challenging to balance work and a family, however, we all do our best in our own capacity. Do pat yourself on the back and appreciate all that you do, you are special and deserve only the best.

If you struggle with any of the above, book in a free exploratory call with me. I would love to partake you on your journey to help you reach your full potential. In the interim I might also have some life tips here that will help you as you progress on your journey to deal with the game of change.

Every individual can innovate. Innovation simply means having an imaginative mindset that is curious to come up with new ideas. The term innovation is not limited to businesses alone. An innovative mind is continually looking at ways to test and implement ideas, giving rise to certain cognitive and behavioral stimulation.  Most times individuals refrain from exploring new ideas because of the sheer belief that they believe the idea won’t change the world. That is not the right way to look at things. Our ideas don’t necessarily need to have a major impact on our surroundings. What it needs to do is – to be able to satisfy our unmet needs.

Developing an innovative mind needs a shift in your mindset and creating that helps to override anything that is holding you back from stimulating your senses.  This exercise corelates to many phrases you hear in your daily life – ‘think out of the box’, ‘get creative’, ‘explore the unimaginable’. Don’t let these phrases intimidate you or over power your urge to add new skills or try out new activities. If you keep doing the same things, you will have to expect the same results. Change in the outcome, requires a sustainable change in the inputs as well.

Once you have successfully developed your mindset, it then becomes easy to follow your mind in achieving milestones or goals that you set for yourself.  Ticking off goals from your checklist is another way to keep motivating yourself to do more and achieve more. Just like you have KPIs at your workplace or a checklist to run home errands, the time to create your personal list is NOW! You can read more on the three best practices to foster a long-term ‘innovation mindset’ in a remote-first future.

Learn a new language

Start by taking smaller steps. Say for example you have always wanted to learn a new language and completing the entire course seems daunting. Here you can divide the course and set smaller milestones and celebrate achieving them along the way. Slowly, the motivation will keep you at it and give you the push to complete the course.

If you need to up your vocabulary or find creative ways of using the language, I would recommend you start reading books in that language or watch series on OTT platforms with subtitles on. Immersing yourself in the language and continuously exposing yourself helps you improve your vocabulary.  If you are working on your English language skills, I would suggest you get the ‘The Magic of Metaphor’ from my personal favorites to practice your speech giving and articulation skills. You can also find more book recommendations here.

Upgrade your skills

Another daily example is a mundane task at work that you have always felt the need to outsource, because you do not know how to do it. For eg:  you are great at developing sales presentations but always need help with putting your ideas creatively in a PPT format. As much as it is okay to outsource work, you can always decide to upskill and learn the basics of putting your presentation together. Slowly you can keep experimenting with all the options you have available and try to incorporate to see what works and what doesn’t. Google does an excellent job at tutoring and providing skills if you wish to upskill.

Brain Training

Innovation happens from Inside Out. Just like physical fitness is essential for the body, mental fitness is essential for optimum functioning of your brain. Keep it occupied with trying to solve puzzles, exploring new roads during your commute to work. Using your less used hand (For eg: if you are right-handed, using your left hand) also activates your brain cells and works towards developing your memory and memory retention.

You can start with simple activities that do not need you to make drastic changes to your lifestyle suddenly. It is all about the consequence of a changing mindset. This plays a major role in magically finding creative ways around all the barriers created during the journey and subsequently learning to deal with change.

Another interesting tip to note is when you fire new and less used areas of your brains, in small steps it still feels safe and it wires new connection network which is needed to improve our cognitive and problem-solving skills.

We all know that communication is extremely crucial whether it is in your personal life or professional. Effective and clear communication will allow you to create a happy  environment at the workplace as well as at home, help you promote wellness in the workplace  and your personal life, and enable you to better deal with stress as it can avoid a great deal of conflict that more often than not arises from ambiguous, unclear communication.

Communication is most effective when there is shared understanding. Many times we take this for granted. We assume the opposite person would understand an instruction/directive while actually they may require further clarity to deliver as per requirement.

I recall an instance of unclear communication that happened with me, and a common one at that. I asked a colleague to keep a certain report ready however, the following day, the report was not complete and work was still in progress. I questioned the co-worker and he said he took to another assignment presuming this report could wait. It was then that I realized I was not clear and concise in my instruction. I should have been specific with the deadline and stressed on the urgency of the task. This would have also allowed him to either negotiate the deadline or confirm it.

How to create a happy workplace with effective communication?

1. Provide constructive feedback regularly
   Without regular feedback, your team can be left feeling confused, demotivated and unsure about where they’re headed.
   
2. Create and discuss future plans for every team member
   Career advancement is important for every professional so if you want your team to be happy and productive, regularly communicate what prospects they have if they stay with your company.
   
3. Express gratitude, faith and confidence
   Remember to always thank and appreciate your employees when they achieve certain targets and goals. And when they are unable to do so, tell them you have faith in them and the confidence that they can accomplish their goals with a little more uphill struggle.

How to deal with stress and How to promote wellness in the workplace using effective communication?

Stress is a contributing cause of depression, anxiety and many other mental health problems. While that may be fairly obvious, stress is also linked with physical health troubles issues like digestive conditions, insomnia, immune system disorders and even heart disease. Given the negative impact stress can have on your physical health, it’s worth paying close attention to any way you can reduce it.

Using the following tips will help you and others around you in dealing with stress and enable you to promote wellness in the workplace and eventually help you remain happy and healthy.

1. Good Communication Reduces and Prevents Stress Inducing Mistakes
   In a business environment, poor communication can cause a lot of stress. Whether it’s you receiving directions or giving directions to someone else, if work related expectations are not communicated effectively, it can lead to mistakes. This will lead to a delay in work and eventually unhappy clients and customers. All of which leads to stress.
   
   When mistakes at work need immediate attention and rectification, it has the team functioning on shorter deadlines with greater pressure. Often a lot of this kind of stress is avoidable if directions and requests were communicated effectively in the first place. With good communication, everyone knows what they are supposed to do and when.
   
   When the information flows from the boss to the team leader to the team to the minions, the last person doesn’t even know why they are doing  what they are told to do. When every member is enrolled in the importance and purpose of the work to be done, and once the work is done, to report back with a check to close the communication loop works wonders in effective communication and efficient work-flow.

2. Explore and express feelings
   Get in touch with your feelings.  Being aware of how you feel – whether it’s anxious, depressed or angry – is the first step to dealing with a stressful problem.  This means taking time out from work and family to be alone. It’s not always possible to avoid stress, but you can learn to cope with it better.  Expressing your feelings can dramatically reduce stress levels and enhance your own sense of well-being

3. Stick to the facts
   When under stress it is easy to distort problems, exaggerate the significance of an event or make sweeping generalizations.  When explaining an issue to someone, always be as specific and objective as you can.

4. Become an engaged listener
   People often focus on what they should say, but effective communication is less about talking and more about listening. Listening well means not just understanding the words or the information being communicated, but also understanding the emotions the speaker is trying to communicate.

If dealing with stress through the pandemic and work style evolution has been tough for you, then visit my website to learn about the 5 techniques to reduce stress as well as other informative articles on health & wellness that help you look after your well-being despite being part of a challenging business environment.

As women we are also known for our multi-tasking abilities. You will find it amusing how our resumes are incomplete without the word ‘multi-tasker’. Whether at work or home, we are made to believe that we need this super power to excel in everything we do. As true as it is, we should ensure we are able to work on multiple tasks at a time, while being able to maintain a great balance. At periodic intervals we must also pause to analyse how productive and meaningful each of our tasks have been. Going with the flow is okay, but stop, pause and reflect is a good way to add greater meaning to all you do.

Recently as office, parks, schools have all come into our living rooms and only limited to screens, routines have not only gone for a toss but also interferes with our daily routines. It is okay to feel overwhelmed but what is not okay is to allow it to take a toll on your health. This is when you should setup boundaries and do so efficiently through communications. You can read here to know Has The Pandemic Actually Helped Women Find That Elusive Work-Life Balance?  Effective communications are not limited to just a co-worker or friend. One should freely communicate with family members, children, caregivers etc with an intent to set clear expectations.

Patience is virtue

Work

With daunting deadlines and limited work hours, we are always in a rush and often impatient. Most often than ever we have no patience to completely explain and convey our views and tasks to our colleagues, subordinates and superior. We are always under the assumption that we have clearly communicated and later frown upon when our expectations are not met. It is okay to assume a shared understanding when a rapport is built and you are able to see through each other’s work. Allow creative freedom and be sensitive while giving feedback. Patience plays a very important role as you take time to understand each other an make a genuine effort to convey the right message.

Home

You have had a bad day at work and expect everything at home to go smoothly. This is not possible always. Not everyone at home understands how your day has been at work. You have to understand that children will behave a certain way not knowing what you have gone through. Similar with your spouse or a child’s care giver. Everybody carries their day into the evening and it is advisable to be patient and give each one a fair chance before shouting or being rude for any actions.

Clear Comms

Work

It is very important to put yourself in each team member’s shoes and understand their strengths and weakness and communicate accordingly. For eg, if there is someone who would understand something better visually, put in that effort to make him / her comfortable and explain to them. Your team member will not only acknowledge your efforts but also be extra motivated to give his/ her best.

Be sure on specifying the timeframe you would like to receive the information in. Mentioning vague terms like ‘as soon as possible’, ‘end of day’ not only decreases efficiency but also drives an unclear conversation. These terms mean different to different work cultures and environments and may not steer a clear indication on when it is expected.

Another example for an improper brief is while you shoot out a message on a group chat on WhatsApp saying you want some research statistics on the recent government policies for starting up new business with a hours’ time.  Your team will get you their respective information and present it. Some will get the industry wrong; some will get the country wrong; some will not know how recent you need the information from. That is why it is very important to structure your brief in a clear and concise manner and get everyone to repeat what their understanding of the brief is. This will help in getting not only the relevant information but also saves a lot of time going back and forth.

Home

Similar considerations to make while at home. Children often are playful and don’t necessarily adhere to timelines, specially if they are vague. Set clear timelines and routines in order to help your kids settle into their day in your absence. Setting routines help a lot. Once you are back home, they know exactly when it is time to play with mom and when she needs a bit of her own space. What also helps here is a clear rewards system, while you enjoy your me-time to unwind and re-energize. You can look up for some exercises to do in your free time here.

In all of the above, communication plays a clear role and leaves you with a happy family and motivated team members. What’s more important is that the happy surrounding will leave you with a happier self which is crucial to begin the next day with positive and renewed energy.  

Most people feel perplexed when it comes to striking a balance between their personal and professional lives. The entire process relies on an individual’s goal setting and time management game. If one knows what they want in life, and how to manage time in a way that it catalyses the process of achieving what they want, the next steps of maintaining the perfect work life balance become easier. It is  because you’re focused,  more organized and better prepared in dealing with stress and other challenges.

I strongly believe that goals are the fuel that drive your ambition and teach you to pursue your dreams. Read this blog on the importance of work-life balance to understand why you need to create a balance before I go on to ‘how’.

Having a definite set of goals not only allows you to manage your time efficiently but also helps you to prioritize your work in such a way that you meet your targets. And when you learn to prioritise, you will find that maintaining work-life balance becomes easier.

Now although the term work–life balance is widely employed, an agreed definition of this term has proved elusive. So what really is work-life balance?

In your professional life, you obviously ought to dedicate time to your work, building skills and qualities that support your career development, networking and learning. In your personal life, you have to spare time for yourself, your family, friends and your hobbies. You also need to devote time to society. Like, how do you plan to give back to the community? – Because after all, we’re all social creatures. I strongly believe in the value system and believe it is the root of our tree of life. Let me give you an example here – children learn from us and as a mother, I have the power to inculcate kindness and show them the joy of giving.

I often get them to participate in a clothes collection drive where my children and their friends put together a package of pre-loved clothes that can be used by kids at an orphanage. This act allows them to feel compassion and the sheer happiness that comes from giving. Now things like these can take a lot of time (learning how to manage time is more important than you can imagine), energy and effort from you and certainly but it’s well worth it. And it’s much stronger and impactful than any textbooks.

So once you have the roots in place – like holding on to values such as empathy, compassion, being truthful, helpful, respectful and kind, you can start building your goals and targets in all the different spheres of life. And it is target-setting that will teach you how to manage time effectively and eventually enable you to strike a balance between your work and personal life.

To begin, rate the various aspects of your life in order of importance and then chalk out a plan on how to manage time in accordance with that so you can give a little of yourself to every fragment of your life. Here are some time management tips that, according to me, are highly effective and can teach you how to manage time successfully.

1. Start each day with a plan: Spend the first 30 minutes of each day, determining how you will spend the rest of it. Make a to-do list on your phone or use the old-fashioned pen and paper list. Your plan should prioritize action items and estimate how long each item will take you.
2. Shut out the distractions: One hugely problematic result of 24/7 connectivity is the constant receptivity to distractions. Perhaps you’re finally getting somewhere on that report you’ve been putting off. But then you receive a Facebook notification, and, oh look, somebody’s friending you! Many of us have come to believe that by blocking these distractions we are missing out on something important. That is rarely the case. Whatever you’re missing will be waiting for you when your work assignments are finished.
3. Make note of where your time is going: Do you have any idea how much of your day is spent on tea/coffee breaks? Now that we’re all working from home, we have the liberty to indulge in a quick nap or a longer-than-usual coffee break. Keep track of  all the unimportant activities you do during the time meant for more important things and strike t
4. Learn to delegate: If you want to have a life beyond work, don’t insist on doing everything yourself. With time, I’ve come to realize that a lot of us hate letting go of control. Maybe we believe that if we want something done right, we have to do it ourselves. But guide your subordinates and learn the art of delegation. Delegating takes getting used to but it has many advantages for managers and their employees alike. Remember that delegation is not a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of leadership.

You must know that none of what I’m saying is easy. We are slaves of habits, and easily fall back into the usual routine that keeps us feeling overwhelmed. But it is ever so important to take time off to slot all the different important aspects of your life because that goes a great way in helping with creating the right work life balance.

If you have been scuffling with setting the right goals, managing your time and maintaining work-life balance, or are facing any other issues that you believe may be hindering your growth, visit my website to book a coaching session with me. The session will offer you guidance on how to break vocational barriers and grow exponentially on the professional front.